This is Me

Abstract

A summer afternoon 15 years ago. Five friends with nothing better to do, and an aunt’s upcoming baby shower – the recipe for what would turn into one of my life’s biggest passions. Many Indian girls are introduced to dance early on in their lives. On this summer afternoon 15 years ago, an aunt had requested performances for her baby shower. We started with our moms choreographing our dances for us while we complained about how traditional the steps were. As we grew and learned how to dance for ourselves, our dance styles fused—a combination of what our moms had taught us and what we had learned for ourselves from living in America. This reflects the recently unearthed concept of the “hyphenated American,” as many children of immigrants find thathyphens describe their identities: Mexican-American, Japanese-American, Italian-American, for example. We, too, became the hyphen: the hyphen in between Indian-American, and in this case, the hyphen in between Bollywood-Hip Hop.